1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for molding pizza rice.
2. Related Art
Conventionally, there has been well-known pizza rice in which various ingredients such as salami, cheese, ham and bacon as toppings are set on the upper surface of a disc-like molded rice food, similar to a pizza using dough.
The pizza rice has been conventionally molded through manipulation. However, it is difficult and time-consuming to mold a rice food having a predetermined hardness and a predetermined shape through manipulation, and accordingly, it is impossible to satisfactorily supply great demand.
Accordingly, the applicant proposed an automated apparatus for molding pizza rice, which is disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent No. H9-238625.
In the above-mentioned pizza rice molding apparatus, a planar rice food transferred by an intermittent transfer conveyer belt, is cut into a square shape by a cutting mechanism, and a pair of molding dies which are symmetrically curved outward so as to have a semi-circular shape are closed so as to a circular shape as viewed in a plan view, and are then lowered for press-cutting the planar rice food a into a disc-like rice food b. Thereafter, the molding dies are opened so as to push remaining rice foods C after cutting, toward opposite sides of the intermittent transfer conveyer belt for discharging them.
However, in the above-mentioned conventional molding apparatus, the quantity of the remaining rice foods C after cutting becomes large, and accordingly, they are accommodated in a container, or they are automatically returned to a rice food hopper for reuse thereof. Should these remaining rice foods C after cutting be repeatedly reused, the density of rice foods would become nonuniform, or the rice food would stiffen so that the taste and the food feeling deteriorate. Thus, there has been raised a problem such that pizza rice having a high commercial value can not be produced.
Explanation will be made of a comparison example with reference to FIG. 18.
In this comparison example, a pair of molding dies d, d which are symmetrically curved outward so as to have a semicircular shape as viewed in a plan view, are closed so as to define a circular shape as viewed in a plan view, and a square planar rice food a is compressed and molded into a disc-like molded rice food by closing the molding dies d, d into the circular shape as viewed in a plan view.
However, in the above-mentioned comparison example, should a square planar rice food a be compressed into a circular shape by the semicircular molding dies d, d, the degree of compression is different between the side parts a.sub.1, a.sub.1 and the corner parts a.sub.2, a.sub.2 of the square planar rice food a and accordingly, the degree of radial restoration after opening the molding dies, is small in the side parts a.sub.1 . . . , but is large in the corner parts a.sub.2 . . . due to the elasticity of the rice food. As a result, as shown in FIG. 19, the parts which were previously the corner parts a.sub.2 . . . of the planar rice food a bulge outward, and accordingly, it is impossible to obtain a true-circular shape rice food, that is, only a low quality deformed pizza b.sub.1 is produced.